Light modulators or more generally electro-optic modulators are employed in a variety of applications ranging from optical communications to electronic displays. For example, light modulators may be employed to modulate light emitted by a backlight in many modern electronic displays. The light modulators may modulate the emitted light in discrete spatially separated regions of the electronic display representing pixels. For example, liquid crystal cells may be employed to modulate light from a backlight to produced pixels of an electronic display. Light emitted by the backlight is directed through and modulated by the liquid crystal cell to vary an intensity of the light emitted by the pixel, for example. Light modulators used in optical communications may employ any of a variety of means including, but not limited to, amplitude modulation, phase modulation and polarization modulation to encode information for transmission on an optical beam within an optical transmission line (e.g., a fiber optic cable).
As suggested above, light modulators may be used to vary or modulate one or more of amplitude or intensity, phase and polarization of a light beam, for example. Light modulators that modulate light using amplitude modulation (i.e., optical amplitude modulators) are sometimes referred to as light valves. Amplitude modulation in a light valve may be accomplished through a change in transmission (e.g., a transmissive light valve) or a change in reflection (e.g., a reflective light valve), for example. The change in transmission may result from a change in an absorption characteristic of the light valve, for example. A liquid crystal light valve typically provides amplitude modulation through a change in a transmission characteristic accomplished using a polarization shift of light passing through the liquid crystal light valve, for example. Reflection light valves may employ a change in direction of a light beam provided by a micromechanical mirror, for example, to affect amplitude modulation of the light beam. In addition, amplitude modulation may be accomplished using phase changes in the optical beam such as in an interferometric light valve, for example.
Certain examples have other features that are one of in addition to and in lieu of the features illustrated in the above-referenced figures. These and other features are detailed below with reference to the above-referenced figures.